The Extinction of Customer Service.

The BBQ Pit
21

This phenomenom is now spreading to the 'net. I just tried to go online to make a credit card payment. The company that holds the card sold off its credit card unit to Citicorp.

When I login to the site, I am told I have to update my username and password. Okay, no problem. When I get to the password part, it keeps telling I have entered an invalid character. I click on the “username & password guidelines” link to see what I’ve done wrong. Well, I haven’t anything wrong, I just have done enough right. I have to have at least two numbers in the password. I had only used one. So I didn’t actually enter an invalid character. I had to call the “help” line to figure this out. The idiot at the “help” center said that they were experiencing “some issues” with the redseigned website.

:rolleyes:

Here’s a free clue, dumbfucks, DON’T LAUNCH A NEW WEBSITE WITHOUT MORE TESTING!! The inability for people to reset their passwords without clear instructions is not a minor glitch.

22

Well, if it helps, TD is noted for having some of the better customer service amongst Canadian banks, so that change might actually help something.

23

This is such an excellent idea, and I wish more people did it. Having done customer service myself, I know you hear so many complaints and so few compliments, so I try to let a company know when they’re doing something right. I recently sent a message to my local Publix, through the corporate website so they’d know about it, too, because I’ve always had such a positive experience shopping there. I value good service and wanted them to know that they’ve gained a loyal customer because of it.

Carry on with the horror stories. :smiley:

24

Tagging on to Geobabe, I’m another who’s written letters and made pointed comments of both complaint and commendation.

I think it really made a nice day for the folks behind the desks in my doctor’s office the day I commented for all to hear that he certainly had a friendly and competent group of employees, and that it was a pleasure to deal with them.

I’ve also written letters to the Person In Charge at local hospitals both when the nursing service was horrid to the point of dangerous (i.e. attempting to give meds different from what had been prescribed) and when it was excellent.

25

Having worked in retail the past couple of years, I’ve decided that customers get as good as they give (or deserve).

26

This is sad but true. ONe thing I’ll point out. When I first started in retail well over a decade ago customers would say “I know your prices are a little higher but it’s worth it because of the great customer service” Customers were aware that great service cost the company money and expected to pay a little extra for it. Over the years since then I’ve noticed customers shopping more and more based on price so companies that have lousey service but low prices seem to flourish. The message that retailers get from customers is that “yes we’d like good service but we won’t pay one cent more for it. We deserve it beause your customers”
Welcome to reality.

27

I had the same thing happen at the store I was managing. Nature Food Centers was bought out by a national ‘health food store’ with close to the same initials. My store was located in Cambridge, MA in the same spot that had held a ‘mom n pop’ type health food store for nearly 30 years, and had clients who’d been shopping there for almost as long.

They bought us claiming they wanted to get more into the grocery side of health food and branch out of the nutritional supplements they specialized in. And promptly decided that we needed to ‘fit their corporate image’ and thus forced me to cut back on the space I devoted to groceries while increasing the space devoted to nutritional supplements, despite my proving to them, with years of figures backing me up, that the vast majority of my business came from the groceries. They also cut out all special orders, * again, despite my figures showing that nearly 20% of the regular customers placed special orders on a monthly basis.*

Do I need to state that within 6 months our business was down by over 50%, and less than two years later we were closed? When they offered me either a layoff, or a transfer to one of their regular stores, I took the layoff. They couldn’t pay me enough to stay with them.

28

Best Buy is the tarnished pillar of poor customer service. Sometimes I’ll run into people working there who aren’t pushy or rude, but often I end up trying to escape to a different isle when I see the blueshirts incoming.
I recently called to see if they had a game in stock that was due out that week:
DP: <Calls BB> Hi, I’m wondering if you could check if you have a game in stock for me please?

BB Worker Drone 138c: That’s computers. Let me transfer you.

DP: <Sits on hold for about six or so minutes>

Telephone: Click! DOOOooooooooo…

DP: Wth…

DP: <Calls back> Uh, hi, I was calling to see if you guys have something in stock and I must’ve accidently been hung up on. It was a PC game.

BB Hive Laborer 98R2: That’s computers. Let me transfer you.

DP: <Sits on hold for five minutes>

BB Hatchling Z90å: Hello?

DP: Yeah, hi. I was curious if you could please check if DAoC: Catacombs is out for me please?

BB Hatchling Z90å: That’s computer software. I’ll transfer you.

DP: <On hold again! This time twelve minutes for a change.>

BB Hive Spawn 551: Hi, what did you want?

DP: Uh… I was wondering if you could see if there’s a game in stock for me please?

BB Hive Spawn 551: I’m doing other stuff right now so you’re going to have to come down to the store and check yourself.

DP: Wait… what?

Phone: Click! DOOOOoooooo

DP: WtF?!

DP: <Goes to EBgames and gets it there.> :dubious:

29

Okay here’s my customer service gripe about the AT&T cable modem service I used to have:
http://www.1728.com/att.htm
I finally removed that gripe from my website not because of any legal action - those shitheads sold the cable modem business and cable TV to another company. WHat a bunch of assholes !!! :mad:

30

So do I.

It’s a sign when a company has a form ready for you to compliment their employees.

It’s also a sign when you go to the customer service desk to compliment an employee and the people behind the desk have never, ever, ever had a customer do that before. (When I went to the other departments in the store, it was easy to see why.)

31

On the other hand, Whole foods has had it’s stock increase %1500 in the last decade and it seems to be part of a larger trend of people demanding premium quality products and good customer service at a premium price. So there is hope on the horizon.

32

Fuck you, you whiney fucks. First off, I have worked customer service for many years now, usually in the IT spectrum of things but I’m sure I have something in common with Customer Service Reps everywhere. Customers are fucking stupid and expect WAY too much out of what is often times FREE customer service.

Let me tell you what my day is like you ungrateful piles of shit. First off, some dipshit calls you and is all annoyed that YOUR product (as if you designed the fucken pile of crap) doesn’t work. You have to enter this slimebag’s information which he gives you at a testy 100 miles an hour which you have to type correctly. Remember QA is watching to make sure you get all the information right. Then you sit and listen to this jackoff’s problem which is often caused by user error or another company’s pile of shit. But you help this fuck anyway. Is he grateful? Fuck no, he deserves the best customer service for the 5 bucks he spent on this POS. He doesn’t need to read the manual, he’s got you to “walk him through it”. Here you are, being screamed at by a supervisor for not getting the asshole off the line in 5-10 minutes and he’s screaming at you for better service.

I support (I shit you not) hundreds of products for multiple companies. I make 10 bucks an hour. I don’t like being treated as if I’m some fucken lackey that you think owes you something. I owe you NOTHING. You’re lucky to be talking to someone from America and not someone in India, which you cheap bastards might note that you are getting more and more of. Keep demanding 24/7 free tech support. Don’t read the manual. Keep treating people like they owe you something. Notice that tech support is getting SHITTIER and SHITTIER. It’s what you deserve.

Luckily, I’m going to law school this August but I have paid my dues in the tech support field. We have a word for those assholes that call us: Lusers.

33

Sorry about that, that was me.

34

Wow, thank god you’re doing something else soon. I only pray you haven’t bought a rifle and scope yet. In reality, haveing worked in computers and electronics you make some valid points. People get flustered when there new gadgets don’t work quickly and easily and they sure don’t want to pay someone with some technical savy to hook it up for them and show them how it works.
Our in joke was the I, D ten, T issue. IDIOT. I understand both sides of it. I just wish customers understood that when you buy something fairly technical and you want the cheapest price then that doesn’t involve lessons on how to use it.

35

How did you get into law school with that spelling ability?

36

This is why you are pissed off. Your employer has placed you in an impossible position, trying to achieve two mutually exclusive goals. The only reason you are so mad at the customer is that he can’t retaliate against you personally, while if you bitch at your boss, he’ll fire you. I don’t blame you for being stressed, but the answer is to find something else as soon as possible, that kind of job will eat you alive from the inside out. The status quo just pisses off three people (you, the customer, and your boss).

37

Sausage Creature
Not all those stories about customer service were aimed at employees. My gripe was directed at AT&T and the execrable manner with which they treated their customers.

38

That post was done by my husband, The Highwayman - sorry if that wasn’t made clearly enough. You can direct your quotes, comments, etc. at him, although I’ll answer one.

Margin, the term “luser” is from the Bastard Operator from Hell, works by whom is considered practically a bible by those that work tech support. “Luser” is a play on words - pronounced “loser”, it is a play on “user” - as in whoever is using the product (although in the case of the BOFH whoever was using the network).

39

Hmmmmm … it seems that there’s an epidemic of other people using someone else’s SDMB account.

40

Just another husband and wife that have to get used to logging in before they post. Hell, Airman and Robyn have been here forever, and you can still follow them around the board by the trail of “Sorry, that was me” that they leave behind.